Starting Monday,
June 16, the day before same-sex marriages can
officially begin throughout the entire state
of California, the online dating community
Chemistry.com will offer a free seven-day membership
to anyone living in California, according to a press release
from the company.
The website,
whose mantra is "come as you are," is inviting
LGBT Californians (and their straight allies) to meet
someone special on Chemistry.com. "This is a
fantastic moment for California," a company
representative said in the release, "and we hope we
can start some new relationships in that
state."
Chemistry.com,
one of only a handful of websites that cater to both the
LGBT and straight communities (roughly 10% of their online
community is LGBT), got a helping hand in constructing
its compatibility quiz from anthropologist Dr. Helen
Fisher. Fisher developed the quiz using patterns of
romantic attraction based on chemical levels in the brain.
Fisher said in
the release, "Approximately 50% of our personality is
biologically based." Her quiz categorizes each person
based on their answers to 56 questions as an explorer,
a builder, a director, or a negotiator. Fisher says
that she herself is "an explorer first, and a
negotiator second."
Recently,
Fisher's research has focused on why people fall in
love with one person rather than another. While much
is unknown about the rules of attraction, Fisher can
speculate. "Maybe, to some extent, it's
chemistry," she says. "Maybe you're
pulled genetically to that person."
As far as
same-sex relationships, Fisher says they're no
different than straight ones. "Who you love is
one little aspect of the brain, but how you feel when
you love is the same in every human being -- it's the
same brain system. It's not going to vary on
the basis of sexual orientation."
Approximately 6.6
million people worldwide have taken Dr. Fisher's
compatibility quiz. (The Advocate)
